Although tremendous advances have been made in elucidating the genomic abnormalities that cause malignant cancer cells, currently available chemotherapy remains unsatisfactory, and the prognosis for the majority of patients diagnosed with cancer remains dismal. Most chemotherapeutic agents act on a specific molecular target thought to be involved in the development of the malignant phenotype. However, a complex network of signaling pathways regulate cell proliferation, and the majority of malignant cancers are facilitated by multiple genetic abnormalities in these pathway. Therefore, it is unlikely that a therapeutic agent that acts on one molecular target will be fully effective in curing a patient who has cancer.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are a class of chaperone proteins that are up-regulated in response to elevated temperature and other environmental stresses, such as ultraviolet light, nutrient deprivation, and oxygen deprivation. HSPs act as chaperones to other cellular proteins (called client proteins) and facilitate their proper folding and repair, and aid in the refolding of misfolded client proteins. There are several known families of HSPs, each having its own set of client proteins. The Hsp90 family is one of the most abundant HSP families, accounting for about 1-2% of proteins in a cell that is not under stress and increasing to about 4-6% in a cell under stress. Inhibition of Hsp90 results in degradation of its client proteins via the ubiquitin proteasome pathway. Unlike other chaperone proteins, the client proteins of Hsp90 are mostly protein kinases or transcription factors involved in signal transduction, and a number of its client proteins have been shown to be involved in the progression of cancer. Examples of Hsp90 client proteins that have been implicated in the progression of cancer are described below.
Her-2 is a transmembrane tyrosine kinase cell surface growth factor receptor that is expressed in normal epithelial cells. Her2 has an extracellular domain that interacts with extracellular growth factors and an internal tyrosine kinase portion that transmits the external growth signal to the nucleus of the cell. Her2 is overexpressed in a significant proportion of malignancies, such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, and gastric cancers, and is typically associated with a poor prognosis.
c-Kit is a membrane receptor protein tyrosine kinase which binds Stem Cell Factor (SCF) to its extraellular domain. c-Kit is involved in the development of melanocytes, mast, germ and hematopoietic cells, and there is evidence that it plays a role in several types of cancer including leukemias, mast cell tumors, small cell lung cancer, testicular cancer, cancers of the gastointesinal tract and cancers of the central nervous system.
c-Met is a receptor tyrosine kinase that is encoded by the Met protooncogene and transduces the biological effects of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), which is also referred to as scatter factor (SF). Jiang et al., Crit. Rev. Oncol. Hemtol. 29: 209-248 (1999), the entire teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. c-Met and HGF are expressed in numerous tissues, although their expression is normally confined predominantly to cells of epithelial and mesenchymal origin, respectively. c-Met and HGF are required for normal mammalian development and have been shown to be important in cell migration, cell proliferation and survival, morphogenic differentiation, and organization of 3-dimensional tubular structures (e.g., renal tubular cells, gland formation, etc.). The c-Met receptor has been shown to be expressed in a number of human cancers. c-Met and its ligand, HGF, have also been shown to be co-expressed at elevated levels in a variety of human cancers (particularly sarcomas). However, because the receptor and ligand are usually expressed by different cell types, c-Met signaling is most commonly regulated by tumor-stroma (tumor-host) interactions. Furthermore, c-Met gene amplification, mutation, and rearrangement have been observed in a subset of human cancers. Families with germine mutations that activate c-Met kinase are prone to multiple kidney tumors as well as tumors in other tissues. Numerous studies have correlated the expression of c-Met and/or HGF/SF with the state of disease progression of different types of cancer (including lung, colon, breast, prostate, liver, pancreas, brain, kidney, ovaries, stomach, skin, and bone cancers). Furthermore, the overexpression of c-Met or HGF have been shown to correlate with poor prognosis and disease outcome in a number of major human cancers including lung, liver, gastric, and breast.
Akt kinase is a serine/threonine kinase which is a downstream effector molecule of phosphoinositide 3-kinase and is involved in protecting the cell from apoptosis. Akt kinase is thought to be involved in the progression of cancer because it stimulates cell proliferation and suppresses apoptosis.
Cdk4/cyclin D complexes are involved in phosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein which is an essential step in progression of a cell through the G1 phase of the cell cycle. Disruption of Hsp90 activity has been shown to decrease the half life of newly synthesized Cdk4.
Raf-1 is a MAP 3-kinase (MAP3K) which when activated can phosphorylate and activate the serine/threonine specific protein kinases ERK1 and ERK2. Activated ERKs play an important role in the control of gene expression involved in the cell division cycle, apoptosis, cell differentiation and cell migration.
The transforming protein of Rous sarcoma virus, v-src, is a prototype of an oncogene family that induces cellular transformation (i.e., tumorogenesis) by non-regulated kinase activity. Hsp90 has been shown to complex with v-scr and inhibit its degradation.
The BCR-ABL fusion protein associated with chronic myelogenous leukemia and in a subset of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The fusion protein is a consequence of exchange of genetic material from the long arms of chromosomes 9 and 22 and results in unregulated tyrosine kinase activity. BCR-ABL exists as a complex with Hsp90 and is rapidly degraded when the action of Hsp90 is inhibited.
Hsp90 is required to maintain steroid hormone receptors in a conformation capable of binding hormone with high affinity Inhibition of the action of Hsp90 therefore is expected to be useful in treating hormone-associated malignancies such as breast cancer.
p53 is a tumor suppressor protein that causes cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Mutation of the p53 gene is found in about half of all human cancers making it one of the most common genetic alterations found in cancerous cells. In addition, p53 mutation is associated with a poor prognosis. Wild-type p53 has been shown to interact with Hsp90, but mutated p53 forms a more stable association than wild-type p53 as a result of its misfolded conformations. A stronger interaction with Hsp90 protects the mutated protein form normal proteolytic degradation and prolongs its half-life. In a cell that is heterozygous for mutated and wild-type p53, inhibition of the stabilizing effect of Hsp90 causes mutant p53 to be degraded and restores the normal transcriptional activity of wild-type p53.
Hif-1α is a hypoxia-inducible transcription factor that is up-regulated under low oxygen conditions. Under normal oxygen conditions Hif-1α associates with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor protein and is degraded. Low oxygen conditions inhibits this association and allows Hif-1α to accumulate and complex with Hif-1β to form an active transcription complex that associates with hypoxia-response elements to activate the transcription of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Increased Hif-1α is associated with increased metastasis and a poor prognosis.
Hsp90 has been shown by mutational analysis to be necessary for the survival of normal eukaryotic cells. However, Hsp90 is over expressed in many tumor types indicating that it may play a significant role in the survival of cancer cells and that cancer cells may be more sensitive to inhibition of Hsp90 than normal cells. For example, cancer cells typically have a large number of mutated and overexpressed oncoproteins that are dependent on Hsp90 for folding. In addition, because the environment of a tumor is typically hostile due to hypoxia, nutrient deprivation, acidosis, etc., tumor cells may be especially dependent on Hsp90 for survival. Moreover, inhibition of Hsp90 causes simultaneous inhibition of a number of oncoproteins, as well as hormone receptors and transcription factors making it an attractive target for an anti-cancer agent. In fact, benzoquinone ansamycins, a family of natural products that inhibit Hsp90, has shown evidence of therapeutic activity in clinical trials.
Although promising, benzoquinone ansamycins, and their derivatives, suffer from a number of limitations. For example, they have low oral bioavailability, and their limited solubility makes them difficult to formula. In addition, they are metabolized by polymorphic cytochrome P450 CYP3A4 and are a substrate for P-glycoprotein export pump involved in the development of multidrug resistance. Therefore, a need exist for new therapeutics that improve the prognosis of cancer patients and that reduces or overcomes the limitations of currently used anti-cancer agents.